


i choose you (the eternity remix)

by walkthegale



Category: Holby City
Genre: Communication, Established Relationship, F/F, Fix-It, Fluff, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 04:17:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20829290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: After the kiss on Serena’s doorstep, after that perfect night, there’s another day, and another night, and then another.





	i choose you (the eternity remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiveroundsrapid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveroundsrapid/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Choice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17701760) by [fiveroundsrapid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveroundsrapid/pseuds/fiveroundsrapid). 

> A continuation of Choice, which is a lovely fix-it fic!

After the kiss on Serena’s doorstep, after that perfect night, there’s another day, and another night, and then another.

Eternity looks like therapy, for them both. Therapy, and communication, and _time_. They have time now.

It looks like mistakes and misunderstandings, and arguments drawn from seemingly bottomless wells of past hurts. It also looks like heartfelt apologies, and joyful days, and a bone-deep and extraordinary happiness in the simple fact of each other’s presence.

Eternity sometimes looks like long-distance. They’re never good at it, but they’re never as bad at it as they were that first time.

Bernie still travels, still takes short-term contracts abroad occasionally, when she’s particularly sought after for the roles. She does a wide variety of different jobs in different places, but now she tries to make sure they’re close by when she can. She learns that the excitement and interest and adrenaline she craves in her work can sometimes be found a train ride from home, not only at the other end of a ten-hour flight.

Eternity looks like jobs that aren’t at Holby City for Serena as well, though hers are always still within touching distance. Jobs that bring new challenges with fewer old ghosts. The ghosts will always be there, there will never be a day without, but Serena doesn’t honour her daughter any the less for not spending every day in the place where she died. She learns, gradually, to spend time, to spend her thoughts, in the places Elinor lived, instead.

Eternity looks like being there for their families, for their friends, but learning how to balance that a little better with being there for each other, and for themselves.

Serena learns to support Jason and Greta and Guinevere, but that she doesn’t need to be with them all the time to be close to them. Sometimes she’s there too much, and sometimes she’s away too long, and balance isn’t always struck. But she gets a little nearer to finding it, and to finding the warmth it brings.

Bernie learns to reforge her relationships with Cam and Charlotte. She learns what those relationships can look like now - what they want and need from her and she from them. She learns about things that can be mended and things that can’t, and how to make her peace with the choices her younger self made, and to find fulfilment in the choices she makes now.

Life keeps on, bringing all the inevitable bad things that happen as well as the good. Eternity looks like learning how to weather all those things together, how to be a team outside of theatre - one that functions just as well as they always have in surgery together. It looks like trusting that they have each other’s backs when everything goes to hell. Like whole weeks where neither can work out the right thing to say, but also like conversations late into the night where one of them lays their soul entirely bare for the other to see.

Eternity looks like choosing each other, over and over again, for the rest of their lives.

But right now, eternity looks like a week’s holiday in Bernie’s cottage in the countryside, and a long, peaceful walk on a day when the sun mostly shines and they were only rained on once.

There’s an old ruin of a wall at the edge of the woods, a little way from the footpath, and it’s just tall enough for Serena to rest almost comfortably against it while Bernie rests comfortably against her. The uneven stone, cool and moss-damp, digs into her back, but it’s worth it.

Bernie ate a Crunchie bar at lunch time and Serena fancies she can taste it on her tongue still, though several hours have passed. _Chocolate and honeycomb_. Serena smiles against Bernie’s mouth, holds her a little closer, and Bernie pulls back just enough to look at her quizzically.

“What do I taste like?” Serena asks, vaguely, distracted by how ethereally beautiful Bernie looks in the golden light of this late afternoon, the sun warm on her hair.

“Shiraz.”

Serena sucks in a breath, suddenly indignant. “I do not!”

Bernie raises an eyebrow and leans back in to kiss her again, gently this time, with a distinctly exploratory air to it. Serena tries for a moment to resist, but the effort doesn’t last long. Just as she sinks into the kiss, Bernie pulls away.

“Mmm,” Bernie licks her lips. “A fine Shiraz, and perhaps a hint of that cheese sandwich you had.” She looks incredibly self-satisfied, in that particular way of hers that just makes Serena want to kiss her again, no matter the surge of irritation.

Serena moves to tug out of Bernie’s arms, but finds herself held fast between Bernie and the wall. She considers giving Bernie a shove. “You are impossible, Berenice Wolfe,” she tells her, instead, and Bernie laughs.

“You taste like Serena,” she says, simply, with a smile so bright it lights up Serena’s entire world.

And Serena looks into her eyes, reaching up to wind one hand into the downy tangle of hair at the nape of Bernie’s neck. She thinks about Bernie leaving. She thinks about Bernie walking away from her, while she stood and watched her go. She thinks about how they’ve watched each other leave so many times now, and how each time is different. Worse. She thinks about the awful, hollow pit in the centre of her that meant that Bernie wasn’t coming back. That meant Serena had to go on, go through this life, without her.

She pulls Bernie down to her and kisses her with an intensity that surprises them both. Her free hand snakes around Bernie’s waist and somehow draws her closer still, though a moment ago she would have said there wasn’t an inch of space between them.

The kiss leaves them both more than a little breathless, Bernie’s fingers finding their way under the bottom of Serena’s jacket, under the layers of jumper and t-shirt, a chilly shock against the bare skin of her stomach. Serena leans into the touch, her desire heavy with relief - Bernie is here, now, with her. Bernie wants to be here. Bernie wants _her_. Loves her. She feels dizzy with it, with Bernie’s hands and Bernie’s mouth, and how much she wants more. How much she wants _everything_.

Serena knows she could carry on. That one more kiss might be the undoing of her. One word, whispered hot into Bernie’s ear, one shift of her hips, one nip at the soft skin of Bernie’s throat, and they would both be lost.

They both know, though, that it wouldn’t be as much fun as it sounds in this moment. That there’s a warm room with a cosy bed awaiting them, where Serena can lay Bernie down and take much more satisfaction from her work than a hasty fumble against a cold wall, with the sky rapidly clouding over again, where another walker could chance upon them at any moment.

Extricating themselves with great reluctance, they head back down the hill, and Serena doesn’t let go of Bernie’s hand for a single moment, through all the perils of overhanging brambles and a narrow, uneven path.

They make it to the cottage just as the heavens open, caught by the very edge of the sudden downpour. Bernie tries for chivalry, attempting to shelter Serena with her jacket, but Serena laughs and pushes her on ahead. They stumble inside with fat raindrops clinging to their hair, puddles forming on the floor at their feet, and they’re kissing again almost before the door has a chance to click shut behind them.

As the sky darkens to evening, the wind rattling against the windows and a fire burning steadily in the grate, Bernie conducts another thorough investigation into what Serena tastes like. She moves slowly, takes her time, until Serena throws her head back and begs, and even then she refuses to hurry.

They do have eternity, after all.


End file.
